Monday, September 22, 2014

September 22, 2014

This week has been a lot better! We still don't have a lot of investigators since we can only teach people who are progressing, and it's nearly impossible to get people to keep commitments. If we feel like we're dragging anyone at all, which is what we usually had to do, we're supposed to drop them. But I mean it's good, you shouldn't ever have to force someone to get baptized, and even to meet with you. It's just hard because it means we have no one to teach! And we've been hoping and praying that the Lord would bless us with some new investigators, but we weren't finding anyone who was prepared, and it was kind of hard. But we're realizing that it's because a lot of people who we taught in the past are ready now! One of them is this lady who lives in our apartment complex. Her son was baptized right before I got here, but soon after I arrived his dad just took him away to Georgia and never came back. This poor lady is so heartbroken, she just wants her son back. But she told us that she still reads the Book of Mormon all the time, and it's how she finds comfort. She's wonderful, we really hope she can get Sundays off work so she can be baptized!

There was also a family that we had dropped in the past because they didn't seem very interested, and we went back to see them this week. We love them so much, they have kids around our age and they're like our best friends. We're afraid we're going to have to drop them again, because they still don't seem too interested. It's going to be really hard, because like I said, they're like our best friends and they're so much fun and we just adore them. But oh well, we're not here to hang out and have fun, we're here to baptize! (:

We had a huge miracle this week with another former investigator! They were teaching him before I got here and he really wanted to be baptized and he was so excited, but he has lupus and was so sick that they couldn't meet with him anymore. But the other day Sister Rowland felt like we should call him, and he was so happy to hear from us. He told us that he just got out of the hospital that day and was thinking about us! He went on for like 10 minutes about how happy he was that we called him, and then at the end he said "and don't forget, I still have to be baptized!" It was awesome, we're going to see him tomorrow and I'm so excited to meet him!

There was another lady who Sister Rowland and her previous companion had met before who we ran into the other day. She was like "hey, I know you!", and asked us to come over. So we did, and she lectured us on why we should stay faithful to one man and told us that it's better to date ugly men because no one else will want them. She's pretty funny :) She wants her 7 kids to be baptized though, so we're excited to start teaching them!

Danielle is doing really well, she's so ready to be baptized, so it's kinda frustrating that she's still living with her boyfriend! She's already in Omni! She really wants to be baptized but she doesn't want it to tear her family apart, which is what she thinks would happen if her boyfriend left. She doesn't want to marry him though, she doesn't even like him very much, she just doesn't want to take away her daughter's father. We're kind of up against a wall with that one, which is hard because she's just so ready. We're going to need a miracle and I know that God can provide a way, I just hope that her boyfriend will understand and agree to live somewhere else. We shall see.

We had another miracle with a less-active lady! Wayyyy less-active. We went to her house because it said a member lived there and we wanted to see who it was. He didn't live there, so we're assuming he left and she just happened to move into his house. Crazy! But she was baptized when she was little and still believes the church is true, but she never goes. She goes to other churches where she can "get the most out of it." The Jehovah's Witnesses were over the other day when we went to see her, so that was awkward :)

Oh, apparently Obama was here last week! Like a few miles from where we live, and we had no idea! World War III could break out and we would have no clue.

We found out something really awesome this week about Lehi's dream when we were preparing to teach our scripture study class. I'm sorry if y'all already knew this, but we didn't and we thought it was cool :) I always thought that the tree of life represents the love of God, because that's what Nephi says. But what he meant by that was the ultimate act of God's love, in sending His Son to die for us. So the tree represents Christ! And the fruit is like the Atonement, that's why everyone can individually partake of it and feel the joy of forgiveness. Cool stuff! I love this gospel, and I love my Heavenly Father and my Savior so much. I'm so blessed to know about them and what they've done for me, and to have the chance to share that knowledge with others, even though they don't always listen :) But when they do, it's the best thing ever :)